Great weather an a dubious hire car marked the start to the 2009 race calendar for the Leisure Lakes Gravity Team as they went their separate ways on the weekend of 25th/26th April. Whilst the downhill riders headed off to Ae Forest for round one of the NPS, I set off to Kielder to battle some the best Enduro riders Europe has to offer.
Kielder is the only ‘Enduro’ format race of the Saab Solomon series, the rest being mass start Maxi and the better known Mega-Avalanche races. An impressive cast of World Cup riders past and present were there, not to mention the Enduro DH specialists. This is truly a great series, no-where else can you pitch up with almost any style of mountain bike and try your hardest against world class completion whilst getting to ride your bike solidly for two or three days. This open to all ethos will hopefully go from strength to strength.
So with Friday and Saturday mornings practice out of the way on the largely rocky and sandy tracks, Saturday afternoons focus moved to the Prologue, or seeding run. This was held on what was to be Stages 4 and 7 on race day which meant that the longest and most pedally stage of the race would be repeated 3 time – doh!!. A solid but conservative effort in seeding left yours truly 26th out of about 240 starters.
Race day started early for the fast guys and with 7 stages to complete, faffing around in the morning was not an option. Stage 1 was the most varied of the day and it was a shame it was the only one not to be repeated. Another solid but conservative effort (which seemed to characterize the race for me), a quick interview with Eurosport and off to stage 2 which was probably the fastest and most open. Stage 3 was the most DH orientated stage, and the most popular judging from the people I spoke with. Stage 4/7 was a repeat the prologue, 5 a repeat of 2 and 6 a repeat of 3. Apart from a couple of little wobbles the day went smoothly but I didn’t mange to improve on Saturdays qualifying position of 26th, which left me in 6th in seniors. David Vazquez took the Pro and overall win with Tracy Mosely Taking the Women’s title.
A bit of a wait now before round two in Andorra but ill be back with the next enduro race report from Ae Forest in a couple of weeks, so stay tuned!!
For full results listing follow this link.
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